Man travels the world to photograph melting glaciers捕捉那即將融化之美

李培貞

隨著全球變暖日益嚴重，冰川正在加速融化，逐漸消失在人們的視野中。有一個人正在與時間賽跑，竭盡全力地為人們去捕捉冰川之美。

主題語境：人物 篇幅：314詞 建議用時：６分鐘

1 Not too long ago， 41?year?old Garrett Fisherflew in a small airplane close to the surface of Eu?ropes largest glacier， which is in Norway.

2 Information from the European Environmen?tal Agency， or EEA， says glaciers in the Alps Moun?tains have lost about half of their volume since1900. The melting has gotten faster since the 1980s. The EEA said that by 2100， the size ofEuropean glaciers could decrease by between 22 percent and 84 percent. Another EEA es?timate suggested that up to 89 percent could melt. The EEA also said nearly all small gla?ciers in Norway would likely disappear.

3 For Fisher， this means that time is running out. The melting pushes him to try to pho?tograph the glaciers before it is too late. In the late 1990s， a friend told Fisher that theworlds glaciers were disappearing， which pushed him to combine his love of flyingand photography to photograph the Earths remaining glaciers.

4 He believes his photographs could be of great value to future generations. So he has?launched Global Glacier Initiative， a non?profit group to support and show his work. Heplans to open his photos to the public for research. Fisher flies a small plane called PiperSuper Cub which can carry two people.“The weather is bad， especially the extremely coldand strong winds， which makes photography technically difficult，”Fisher said.“And tophotograph glaciers， were getting very close to all of this action. So it requires a lot of skill，time and determination.”

5 Some people would ask，“Why did you risk flying over glaciers when satellites al?ready give pictures of them？”Fisher said that satellite images dont capture the beauty ofglaciers the way his photos can. His photos show the colors， shapes， and shadows as thelight from the sun hits the glaciers.“Science has all of the data we need... The problem is，its not beautiful，”he said.

Reading Check

Gist

1. What does paragraph 2 mainly talk about？

A. The urgency of protecting glaciers.

B. The seriousness of glaciers melting.

C. The cause of the disappearance of glaciers.

D. The recent research on glaciers melting.

Detail

2. What drove Fisher to take pictures of glaciers？

A. Words from a friend of his.

B. An invitation from a photography studio.

C. Photos taken by satellites.

D. His enthusiasm for glaciers.

Detail

3. Why is Fishers shooting challenging？

A. Time is limited.

B. The weather is terrible.

C. He doesnt have professional equipment.

D. He doesnt have complicated shooting skills.

Inference

4. What can we know from Fishers words in the last paragraph？

A. His pictures cost more time and are more difficult to take.

B. His pictures of glaciers have more scientific research value.

C. His pictures focus on presenting glaciers beauty in various as?pects.

D. His pictures provide more detailed information on glaciers for the public.

Language Study

Ⅰ. Difficult sentence in the text

In the late 1990s， a friend told Fisher that the worlds glaciers were disappearing，which pushed him to combine his love of flying and photography to photograph the Earthsremaining glaciers. 20世紀90年代末，一個朋友告訴費希爾，世界上的冰川正在消失，這促使他將自己對飛行和攝影的熱愛結合起來，拍攝地球上僅存的冰川。

【點石成金】本句是一個復合句。a friend told Fisher that the worlds glaciers weredisappearing中的that引導了一個賓語從句；which引導一個非限制性定語從句，修飾前面整個句子。to photograph the Earths remaining glaciers是不定式作目的狀語。

Ⅱ. Text?centered chunks

run out 用盡；耗盡

push sb to do 推動某人做

combine...and... 把……和……結合起來

get close to 接近；靠近

risk doing 冒險做